The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Sight Words

Hopefully you’re joining my from my letter of the week, or print concepts series. If so, you’re already well on your way to teaching your child to read!

But now, you’re probably thinking…

We get Print Concepts, we know our letters and sounds…Now What?

Truthfully, at this point it becomes somewhat of a juggling act. You need to balance sight words, high frequency words, phonemic blending, and reading strategies simultaneously. But today, we’re going to focus on one piece of that puzzle and tackle sight and high frequency words. We’ll come back to the other pieces soon.

To get you started, I’m sharing with you my 3 part series on the Ultimate Guide to Teaching Sight Words. After 10 years in the classroom, my sight word teaching technique is practically down to a science. And so, I’m unlocking the treasure chest for you!

In this 3 part series we’ll look at:

the importance of sight words (and share a FREE set of sight word lists)
games and activities to teach sight words (so they aren’t totally boring)
Lesson plan ideas for the entire list (with a free template)

I’ve got lots of freebies hidden throughout all the posts, so be sure to check them out and grab all the goodies! But first, let’s take a quick look at exactly why sight words are so important.

What’s so special about sight words anyway?

Sight words are a crucial piece to the literacy puzzle. Even though through phoneme (letter) instruction we are explicitly teaching kids that our language has rules, they still must understand that there are a lot of exceptions in our language as well. Sight words obviously making up a large portion of those exceptions.

What are sight words?

Sight words are words that don’t follow the conventional rules of our language. You cannot sound them out. They must be memorized. Therefore, your child needs to be able to recognize them on sight. The goal is to be able to say it immediately without hesitation. These are words like: the, are, and all. They all look completely different than they sound.

What are high frequency words?

High frequency words are words that occur frequently in our language. The differ from sight words in that they can sometimes be sounded out phonetically. This are words like can, but, and it. They occur abundantly in our language, often multiple times.

Most kindergarten teachers use the Dolch Sight Word List, and I do as well. Mine may vary slightly in some places as it evolved over many years of teaching. After reading eleventy billion leveled books, I started to notice which words were most frequently occurring in those simple, beginning, texts. I moved a few things around and was able more closely fit the needs of my students.

From there I developed my own word lists. You can grab the first 4 lists (100 words total) for free by clicking here or on the image below.

These lists are my secret weapons when it comes to teaching sight words, which in my kinder world were called popcorn words.

Popcorn words? Huh?

I’m not sure either.

When I first started teaching kindergarten we called sight words, popcorn words. No one really ever explained to me why, so I kind of made up my own story about why and it evolved into a short little mini-lesson introducing them to the kids. If you’re interested, you can grab that for free here.

Yeah, but how do I teach them?

So…we know popcorn words are words that defy our understanding of phonics. Therefore, they cannot be traditionally sounded out. The English language is a super complex beast.

So these words just have to be memorized. Memorizing things can be super tedious and extremely boring for children. They need stimulation and lots of variety. Teaching sight words truly needs to be a multifaceted approach. If they can connect with the words orally, visually, and tactility, they can commit the words to memory.

So with my daughter, I wanted to develop an approach that encompassed all these things. She needed something that would keep her engaged and entertained.

So I rounded up my lists, games and other teacherly wisdom and started working on a plan that would work for us. That evolved into this series for you. First being this in depth look at hi-frequency and sight words, and the free resources for teaching them.

Next, I rounded up a ton of sight word games and activities to keep that cute little brain of hers super stimulated and learning!

And finally, I developed a schedule and 5 weeks of lessons that would provide the repetition necessary in a manner she would find fun!

Each of the above resources will have your child learning their sight words pronto! They are on the start of their reading journey!

While a great deal of the resources are free, I also have to take just a minute to plug my super convenient and super affordable Popcorn Words Bundle. It includes tons of valuable printables to help you teach your child.

Do I really need it?

If I’m honest, you might not.

You can devise your own lesson plans using the information in my games and activities post. You might can even design your own printables and worksheets for your child to work on.

But the question is, will you? And do you actually have the time to do it?

No worries Mama. I’ve got you!

My Popcorn words pack, is everything you need to get started with List 1 of sight words! And I’ve got resources for the next 3 lists in the works. I’ll be sure to update when these are available, so be sure to pin this for later.

In edition to being all the resources you’ll need to teach your child their first 25 sight words, my sight word pack is super affordable! You can get all these incredible time saving resources for less than a Chic-fil-a combo!

That’s not the only reason you should grab it though. Check out everything you’ll get included with it!

In my 49 page pack you’ll get:

Lists 1-4
Flashcards for List 1
Daily practice worksheets for List 1 word (25 total)
List 1 Instructional Schedule
5 weeks of Complete daily plans
POP game cards
Assessment sheet

My favorite part of this pack? The daily practice sheets! You can grab one of them for free by clicking here or on the image below!

When I was a teacher, I struggled to find sheets the students could actually complete independently. In light of that, I tried to keep these sheets very simple. The structure of these sheets is simple and predictable and will allow your child to complete this almost 100% individually. There are a few sentences that you will probably want to read with them, but other than that, a couple times and they will be ready to practice alone!

This pack will save you time, and make your life simpler, so the $5 it costs will more than pay for itself! And as I’ve said before, you get the instant karma of helping a Mom support her family!

Don’t wanna?

It’s cool, really! I’ll still share! Check out my next post for 20 Fun & Engaging Activities for learning sight words.

And don’t forget to pin this for later!